Eurogamer will be holding another Expo this year after the mild success of 08’s offering, and returning once again will be the Indie Games Arcade which will also be present throughout the event emitting rays of awesome from whatever part of the convention it will have landed in.
EGExpo 2009 tickets are available now for £6 and will be open for four days. It starts at The Royal Armouries on the 27th and 28th October in Leeds, before moving to London at Old Billingsgate on the 30th and 31st October. I’ll be around on the 31st so I’ll be sure to take some photos and post up some impressions, especially for Cletus Clay, but hopefully it’ll be redundant if you’re a UK TIGer as you’ll be dropping in to show your support. Right?
Looking forward to seeing anyone who heads out there!
Yo, I’m in Washington right now for PAX (first time)! The show starts tomorrow, but today I got to attend a Microsoft event where some indies were in attendence. Slick Entertainment was one of the teams present, and they were showing off Scrap Metal, a “cars with guns” racing game that’s coming out to XBLA next year. As a fan of Rock n’ Roll Racing, RC Pro AM, Off Road, etc., I’m very excited about this one. The handling and physics felt great, and the action was raucous.
The inimitable and cheeky Introversion guys were also present and had Darwinia+ available to play. This game includes both the IGF award-winning Darwinia as well as Multiwinia (shown in the video above). I enjoyed Darwinia a lot but hadn’t ever played Multiwinia, mostly due to my aversion to multiplayer-only games (this might change now that I’ve tried Left 4 Dead 2). But hell, Multiwinia is great fun in singleplayer mode against the computer, too. I’ll be looking forward to grabbing D+ for the full experience.
And finally… Fez wasn’t on hand at the event, but it is coming out for Live Arcade in 2010 and there is some new footage of it in this episode of G4’s Electric Playground (around the 6:00 mark).
Introversion’s Chris Delay posted a rather sobering series of articles reflecting on the team’s difficulties over the past couple of years, including the apparently lackluster reception to Multiwinia. It’s very honest, heartfelt, and revelatory. Thanks for sharing this, Chris.
I’ve always been of two minds towards Introversion. On the one hand, I’m a big fan of Darwinia and grateful for what Introversion has done with their early success to help popularize indie games and pave the way for other developers. On the other hand, the slogans, expensive cars, and general attitude of the marketing and business arm have always rubbed me the wrong way. Everyone’s allowed their fun, of course, but I couldn’t help but feel like there was almost a Romero-ness to it all… like someone I admired was telling me to “Suck It Down™,” or whatever.
So reading Chris’s latest posts, I’m reminded of Ion Storm, the story of which I read once a year as a reminder that things can always go in another direction (and it just so happens that my yearly reading came this past week). I don’t say that with any kind of satisfaction… I’ve met and spoken with Chris before, and it’s obvious he is just a shy and talented guy who enjoys programming and making games. Nor are the lessons to be learned necessarily the same – I just think both tales are really relevant to indie developers and important to keep in perspective as the scene grows ever larger.
Anyway, here’s hoping that the rest of the year is good for Introversion, and for everyone! Time to put the nose to the grindstone (or rather, keep it there) and make some cool games.
Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:31:00 GMT
I just recently rediscovered Offworld, Brandon (the Brandon people are talking about when they say I look different in my press photo) Boyer’s excellent, excellent indie/weird gaming blog. I shall be diligently mining it for TIGS content from now on.
DefconAR was originally just gonna be a cool little toy for us to use in the office to wow people who came to see us. Who’d have to hide the Defcon screen from your boss when playing Office mode, if there isn’t even a window open for it? Have a small tile on your desk, wearing some AR goggles, and no one would know. Obviously there isn’t much to it at the moment, I still need to spice up the world rendering, and then add in some actual content, but just imagine how this would look with nukes flying over the globe in realistic arcs, and maybe even 3D mushroom clouds.
Yes, please, this is awesome. You know, if it were feasible, this sort of thing could make for a great Gamma... (GammAR?)
Introversion has declared that the next six Mondays will be for Multiwinia, the multiplayer version of their real-time strategy game Darwinia. The first installment went live yesterday, and featured this video, which is pretty cool.
In other news, Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Jim Rossignol has declared that Tuesdays will be for tuna and all tuna-related comestibles! And as for me? I’m declaring that Wednesdays will hereafter be known as Werewolf Wednesdays. Because that’s when I will be turning into a werewolf and “surfing” on the top of my dad’s van. In Spanish.
“Introversion: The First of the Last of the Days of the Week”
Multiwinia is slated for a simultaneous PC/Mac release in September, and an XBLA release in December.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s own Kieron Gillen has penned a hands-on preview of Multiwinia, the multiplayer version of Introversion’s hit real-time strategy game Darwinia. Hmmm, that sentence certainly sounds strange with all the “versions” and “winias” in it…
Anyway, in the preview Kieron plays a “King of the Hill” match against four computer opponents. From the preview and the comments following, the general consensus seems to be that the game’s mechanics are simple and relatively standard (which isn’t necessarily a slight). The game also continues to look quite good.
Multiwinia is slated for a PC release in September. It will also be included with the original game as part of Darwinia+ for the Xbox 360 – also due out in the Fall.
You can now buy all three Introversion games (Uplink, Darwinia, Defcon) in a single bundle via Steam. The Introversion Anthology is normally $29.95 USD, but for the week leading up to Christmas, it’s only $20.00, which is quite a steal!
Introversion is currently working on Multiwinia, a multiplayer version of Darwinia, and Subversion, their official “fourth game” that somehow involves a procedurally-generated cityscape.
Introversion’s Mark Morris participated in a discussion at GCDC called “Against the Big Boys,” during which he talked about Introversion’s troubled starts (and eventual success), and what publishers can and can’t do for you.
He also revealed how getting drunk can lead to vagrancy and/or distribution deals:
“I was too drunk to get aware of all of it,” Morris admits of that night at the IGF. “I guess I slept on a park bench that night.”
...
In the Q&A that followed, Morris was asked how Introversion landed its deal with Steam, to which he glibly replied, “We got drunk with [Valve COO Scott Lynch]. It was simple as that.”
Game journalist extraordinaire Kieron Gillen (or Keer-eon Gill-eon as I like to call him), sits down for a chat and a spot of tea with Introversion’s Chris Delay.
“Comparing DEFCON to our other games is difficult. Uplink is rugged and buggy and ugly and still sells more than Darwinia every day. Darwinia is our oddball second album, our very own love letter to the Amiga and the soul of great videogames, and the game I’m most proud of. DEFCON is a relatively simple multiplayer game idea and I think that’s probably the key to its success.”
